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Sunday, July 05, 2009

Libia Gil and Lowell Billings need to take the advice given by David Frost to Richard Nixon

I just watched the movie Frost v. Nixon, which suggests that Richard Nixon owed an apology to the American people.

Many Americans were outraged that Nixon was pardoned by President Gerald Ford and was never prosecuted for any crime. But isn't that how our justice system works? Isn't it true that powerful insiders in government, schools, corporations and non-profits can commit illegal acts and it just isn't considered illegal because, as Nixon said, "if the president does it, it's not illegal"?

David Frost told Richard Nixon that the American people needed to hear him say that he did more than make mistakes, that his actions were wrong, perhaps criminal, and that he did abuse power.

I believe that many other people in power ought to admit the same thing. Chula Vista Elementary School District administrators Libia Gil, Lowell Billings and Richard Werlin as well as CTA leaders Beverly Tucker, Tim O'Neill, Gina Boyd, Jim Groth and Peg Myers ought to say, "We put Castle Park Elementary through needless agony, a spiral of self destructive obstruction of justice that harmed hundreds of students, and forced the taxpayers to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover up our mistakes."

Also, these individuals should make amends by helping to change the attitude of teachers toward the law. Our children learn from many of their teachers that the rule of law is something that is to be applied by the strong to the weak, but it is grossly inappropriate for the weak to demand that the law be applied to their superiors.